Traffic noise ups heart attack risk

Your risk of heart attack increases with the amount of traffic noise to which you are exposed. The increase in risk — though slight — is greatest with road and rail traffic noise, but less with aircraft noise. 

These are the conclusions reached by Andreas Seidler and co-authors in the Deutsches Ärzteblatt International after evaluating information from statutory health insurers on over a million Germans over the age of 40. The authors believe the lower risk from aircraft noise can be explained by the fact that, unlike road and rail traffic noise, aircraft noise never remains continuously above 65 dB.

Although strictly speaking these results show only an association between traffic noise and heart attack, the authors believe that the sheer numbers of people affected by noise pollution mean that it is now right to start intensive efforts towards effective prevention of traffic noise.